Indonesia's PDI-P leads in elections, but less than expected-pollster

Source: Reuters - Wed, 9 Apr 2014 10:46 GMT

Author: Reuters

JAKARTA, April 9 (Reuters) - Indonesia's opposition party, Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), led in parliamentary elections on Wednesday, but will not likely get enough votes to independently field a presidential candidate, according to a quick count by think-tank CSIS.

PDI-P emerged on top with a weaker-than-expected 19 percent of the national vote, below the 25 percent threshold needed to put forward its presidential candidate.

That means PDI-P will likely need to partner with at least one other party to allow Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, to run in July's presidential election.

The Golkar party came in a close second with 14 percent of the vote, while the Gerindra party followed with 12 percent, said CSIS in a quick count based on 80 percent of votes sampled at 2,000 polling stations.

Indonesia's Islamic political parties surprised with a combined 32 percent of the vote. Analysts had expected they would perform worse than their 29 percent share in the 2009 elections, following a spate of corruption scandals.

The government is expected to formally announce the election results in early May. (Reporting by Jakarta bureau and Jongwoo Cheon in Singapore; Writing by Randy Fabi; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

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